SHEDDY OZOENE 
House number 43, Idi Maska Road in Funtua, Katsina State, was just like any other building in the busy neighbourhood adjourning the Funtua Central Motor Park, save for the unending stream of visitors that trooped in and out of it. Some of the callers are friends of its famous occupant while others are members of the Social Democratic Party, (SPD). The building, a one-storey affair, green in colour, was the residence of the legendary Hausa folk musician cum politician, Alhaji Mamman Shata who was at the time, chair- man of the SDP in Funtua Local Government Area. I had travelled from Katsina to Funtua in March 1991 to keep an interview appointment with the musician who had agreed to speak on his music and his aspiration at the time to contest for the position of Katsina State governor. Last week, as I passed through the town to Malumfashi to witness a friend’s daughter’s marriage, I could not but remember the interesting encounter with the man.
A visitor who expected to find Shata’s abode as a mansion in the exclusive part of the town would be disappointed. Despite his social standing as the foremost musician in Northern Nigeria at the time, he relished his life of ordinariness. Not for him the usual splendour of the rich and powerful. His sitting room on the ground floor was sparsely furnished, without even the simple floor carpet or electric fan. Notwithstanding, his admirers and party faithful made themselves comfortable, squatting around him on the bare floor. I don’t know what he expected of me that March after- noon, but after exchanging greetings, I had made myself comfortable in one of the more comfortable chairs.
Shata was an enigma of sorts and it showed all through the hour and half-long interview. He was his usual self – eloquent, oratorical and pedantic. Shata was always at home whenever the discussion is ‘Kalangu’ music or politics. Over the years he has come to master both. For a man who does not know when he was born, he remembers that he started playing music in his birthplace, Musawa, and it has since brought him recognition across Nigeria and from foreign lands. His music put him on first name basis with the rich and powerful and he was the toast of all the big occasions in Northern Nigeria. Music has always been his familiar ter- rain, until during the Second Republic when he decided to go into politics.
He rode against the popular wave by shunning the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), and the Peoples’ Redemption Party (PRP), both of which were the dominant parties in the old Kaduna State. If his decision to go into politics took everybody who knew him by surprise, his choice of playing the opposition was even more so. He opted for the Great Nigeria Peoples’ Party (GNPP) led by Alhaji Waziri Ibrahim. Somewhat a radical, definitely a non-comformist, he holds mostly opposing views on most social and political issues, some of which earned him time in detention. He prefers to be identified with the ‘talakawas’ whose suffering, he said, inspired his decision to go into politics, but he does not tie his philosophy to Alhaji Aminu Kano or any other politician dead or alive who had stood on the side of the ‘talakawa’.
After what was a turbulent time in the GNPP of the Second Republic, one thought he would leave politics alone. Wrong! Although after the death of the Second Republic, he went back to his music full time but when the two parties (SDP and NRC) were formed by President Ibrahim Babangida, he joined the Social Democratic Party, (SDP), and became Chairman of the party in Funtua Local Government Area. In-between pulls and puffs at his trade- mark Rothman’s cigarette, he told me that politics was his life, just as music was his life, “so there is no leaving one for the other because that would amount to a King abdicating his throne”. By local standards, Shata was a rich man who made money through his music, but everything he made, he shared with the poor. He lived with the poor, ate with them and shared in their aspirations.
He was insistent that he would contest and win the governorship election of Katsina State that year. When I reminded him that he would hardly meet up with the necessary educational qualifications stipulated by law for the governorship contest, he had retorted that the law would have to prove or disprove whether his strings of (honorary) doctorate degrees are inferior or superior to the GCE O’level certificate required by law. He laughed through the thick cigarette smoke, and followed it up with coughing. Alhaji Shata has over 15 awards in recognition of his contribution to music and to the society, some of which are honorary degrees by universities around the world. He garnered over three different honorary awards from the Ahmadu Bello University alone. A week before our meeting, he was given a special recognition award by the Performing Musicians Association of Nigeria (PMAN).
Shata was indeed a great man. He lived what he believed. My recent trip through Funtua was one that rekindled the memory of that encounter. It was one encounter that made a huge impression on me at the time, of one man’s conviction and his effort to uplift the poor and the lowly.
